It is REALLY disappointing not to have full THX sound and a cleaner picture with the OT. We accidentally popped in the reworked ANH and got all excited. "Look how nice it looks on DVD!" Once we realized our mistake, it was rather disappointing to put in the grainy original.

I actually watched the redone "Empire" last night, because I remembered that was pretty much left alone...and that looked and sounded fantastic. Why couldn't Lucas have just met us halfway?

But it is nice to be able to get surround stereo sound which I can't get with my old VHS copy.

I don't think many people would have a problem with the SEs if Lucas didn't go and actually alter the content of the films (Han vs. Greedo, adding in redundant Jabba scene, altering dialogue, adding in superfluous scenes that ruin the pace of the film (I'm looking at you TESB!), replacing a harmless musical number with one that is ultra-cartoony, replacing Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christensen, etc.).

If it was just a matter of updating visual effects and cleaning up the print, I think there'd be nary a complaint anywhere. But Lucas done changed the stories. It doesn't matter how little he changed, changed he did and when he said these changes were now Star Wars and the films we originally saw were forever put away never to be seen again, that got people's ire up.

It's a matter of choice. One choice isn't necessarily better than the other, but the choice should be available. Lucas went a step further than the common bootleggers for this release, so he didn't really do much to appease people, but he did do something and hopefully the unaltered films will find their way to the people who wish to continue to watch them when they want to without fear of a crappy VHS tape warping or breaking or having to keep old laserdisc equipment because that's the best available format (it'd be like holding onto 8-track players because that's the only way to hear your favorite album!).

It's all about choice. Now the public at large has one. It's not a great choice (IMO), but we now have one.

TESB was indeed the least altered film, but there were a few annoying changes.

In the 1997 SE they eliminated Luke's line to Artoo "You're lucky you didn't taste very good" and instead had him say "You're lucky to get out of there." They eliminated Vader's cool as shit, "Bring my shuttle" for some lame ass "Alert my star destroyer to prepare for my arrival" and then proceed add in gratuitous shots of Vader boarding his shuttle, flying away, nearing the spaceship, and then landing all intermixed with the Falcon's escape from Bespin. Anyone with a good ear should notice the odd music changes and weird edits in this sequence. There were other changes, but they were so miniscule that it didn't really matter, save for one but they fixed it on the DVD release.

In the 2004 SE, they returned Luke to a manly man by taking out that Dumbledore ass scream they added in 1997 as he leapt away from Vader into the chasm below. They refilmed the Emperor hologram scene to include Ian McDiarmid and they also redid the dialogue in this scene (now Vader is playing dumb when Palps mentions Luke).

Those are the big changes. The two that really pulled me out of the movie originally were Luke's scream and the choppy-editing-for-no-gorram-good-reason during the Bespin escape. Were people really confused for 20 years that they couldn't figure out how Vader returned to his ship? Gah!

Lady Sheridan wrote:What is added in TESB? I can't remember. I watched it thinking "Oh wow, this one is practically pure!"

See what has happened? George Lucas altered my memories. I can't let him win!!

The alterations to TESB were much less than the other films. Here's a list courtesy of wikipedia

The Empire Strikes Back
-The opening battle sequence was cleaned up.
-New scenes on Hoth with a fiercer-looking wampa ice creature, including showing the wampa screeching in agony following the loss of its limb. Two close-up shots of the original wampa mask are still noticeable.
-The blaster bolts of the TIE fighters have been made more green.
-The scene where the Slave I follows the Falcon out of the Star Destroyer's floating garbage was redone with CGI, resulting in smoother action. There is also a newly created CG shot of it pursuing the Falcon.
At the entrance shot of Cloud City, the Cloud Car was replaced by a Tibanna refinery. (The Tibanna refinery is almost panned and scanned out of the full screen DVD version. The right side of the refinery can be seen briefly in the full screen DVD version if played on a PC.)
-New and additional shots of Cloud City
-Several wall panels have been digitally replaced with windows to show more of Cloud City.
-Luke's line, "You're lucky you don't taste very good," after R2-D2 is spit out by a Dagobah dragonsnake, is changed back to the original "You were lucky to get out of there."
-Lando Calrissian says "Attention" twice when he speaks on the Cloud City PA.
-Shots of people listening to Lando on the PA ordering the evacuation of the city are added.
-Luke screams as he jumps off the platform in Cloud City (the scream is actually lifted from the Emperor's death scream from Return Of The Jedi)
-Darth Vader's line, "Bring my shuttle," is changed to "Alert my Star Destroyer to prepare for my arrival," a line originally recorded for A New Hope.
-A digital hatch has been added to replace the white light that appears when Lando opens the outer hatch to rescue Luke.
-A new scene with Darth Vader landing in the docking bay of his Star Destroyer, based on an outtake from Return of the Jedi
-"The Imperial March" is partially repeated in the ending credits music to make room for the Special Edition release credits.

I watched the original ROTJ and then went back and watched the SE ending--I hadn't seen it in so long, I did not realize Naboo was one of the celebrating planets. Pretty neat.

But my confession is--I really dig the young Anakin ghost. It made me a little choked up and this is from someone who wouldn't have minded pushing him into the lava herself. Christensen had more pathos in that scene than he was allowed to have in two prequels.

I liked how he slowly appears after the rest...which (slightly) clears up that whole "Qui Gon taught us how to do this" plot hole.

The only real problem I had with it is that none of the other two react to him as they should which just about takes the emotion out. They should have at least altered Yoda a tad...he's a puppet, there's no reason they couldn't have had him look over.

In some ways, I wish they'd just gone ahead and added in Ewan McGregor. Or had Alec Guinness morph into a young version of himself--thus making it "now we're at peace and things are right in the world" kind of mood. Then he could properly react to young Anakin. Lucas might as well just go all the way when he's revising the history.

Such is my confession...how long until I can get my fangirl cred back? Han still shot first...

Bah, I'm not a fan of the changes. But there are a few I don't mind too much

1. ANH - the entrance to Mos Eisley is kinda cool
2. ROTJ - seeing the different planets celebrating at the end
aaaaaaaand, that's it. I particularly hate the explosion ring that happens when the Death Star explodes in ANH. (Alderaan too, but that doesn't bother me as much) The Death Star explosion is the climactic moment of the picture, and its just ruined by the hokey cgi ring that "whooshes" out at you.

But, for all my bitching, I still haven't picked up the DVD's of the originals. If they go super-discount, maybe. But I bought the 2004 set and I don't want to throw away my money on this inferior double dip. No print clean ups, no anamorphic widescreen, no 5.1 mix=not buying. Nice try.

edit = hey, look at that - this is officially post number 666 for me! Which makes this my official devil worshipping post. And since my slavery to Lucas is a lot like worshipping the devil, it seems appropriate!

Be sure to get 'em at Wal-Mart....for the same price they each come with a the comic adaptation of the film. And not just some cheezy little booklet, but an actual DH graphic novel of the original Marvel books. At $19.99 I couldn't resist that deal. Plus I'm kinda stoked with the widescreen packages are gold instead of that silver that didn't match up with my PT-DVDs....I went ahead and put the old ones back in the box and put it away. Now my SW-collection looks nifty on my DVD-shelf....and I have all three graphic novels....
I did the right thing by buying these....yeah, I did the right thing....I'm sure I did the right thing...

wonkabar wrote:Be sure to get 'em at Wal-Mart....for the same price they each come with a the comic adaptation of the film. And not just some cheezy little booklet, but an actual DH graphic novel of the original Marvel books. At $19.99 I couldn't resist that deal. Plus I'm kinda stoked with the widescreen packages are gold instead of that silver that didn't match up with my PT-DVDs....I went ahead and put the old ones back in the box and put it away. Now my SW-collection looks nifty on my DVD-shelf....and I have all three graphic novels....I did the right thing by buying these....yeah, I did the right thing....I'm sure I did the right thing...

You did the right thing. That comic adaptation would tip the scales and make me buy too. But, I bet dollars to donuts that the deal isn't available in Canada.

Seriously, I just compared the two versions of ANH and the "old" one actually looks not only suprisingly good, but in some cases it is superior to the 2004 clean-up IMO. I'm telling you, while the '04 version is great in many ways it's just too damn DARK. Maybe it's different on a higher def-TV, but I swear you can't see a fucking thing in the cantina sequence, in fact, Greedo's face is barely visible. Same goes for the Imperial-meeting scene. The blackness is just overwhelming. On the '93 it's not a problem. Despite the scratches and artifacts and what-not it's still pretty crisp and "new-looking" and I frankly prefer it. Empire on the other hand, definitely looks better, and Jedi...again, despite the scratchies, the '93 doesn't so much look bad compared to the '04, it just looks different. In some spots it has a softness I like better. So, I'm glad I picked these up (plus I grabbed them from Wal-Mart and got the cool graphic-novels), though I would have liked to have had it anamorphic for my someday-TV, if any future "clean-up" of the un-altered SW involves the same kind of darkening of blacks that I've noticed in the '04, then I'll be all the more glad I have these. Anyway, check out the two Greedo scenes on the DVDs if you have them and tell me I'm not crazy. You can barely even see him shooting first.

I haven't seen them yet. I was hoping that'd there'd be a plethora of reviews that could help me decide whether or not to buy these, but I'm just as clueless now as I was before they hit stores. So I'm just gonna wait for Netflix to send them to me so I can see for myself.

monorail77 wrote:Dam,n dueced damn. I went to my local Canadian Wal-mart and, sure enough, no graphic novels included.

I don't suppose some kind hearted Zoner would want to facilitate picking these up and shipping them to me in Canada? I'd pay up front! I have a job and everything!!

i'll be glad to help out, Monorail. just send me a pm and we can work out the details.

Peven!! You rock, my man. Very generous. And I may take you up on it.

But since I wrote that plea, I've had a brilliant idea: my folks will soon be travelling to the U.S. on their annual snowbird vacation. I'm going to ask them to pick up the Wal-Mart versions for me. This has the advantage of them paying for the movies, and they likely won't ask me to refund them (mwahahahaha).

But, if they refuse or if there's some glitch, I'll definitely be sending you that PM. Thanks for being a sport.

I've been thinking of how this would work. Out of curiosity, and for potential future reference, do you have any ideas? Could I forward money to some internet account of yours, like paypal or something? Or would I send you a cheque? I'm loathe to give out my credit card number, not that I don't trust you, but just in case, y'know?

I'm curious if anyone has suggestions about the logistics of someone buying stuff for me in the U.S. and shipping it to Canada. The goal would be for me to pay up front, but not overpay, because refunds would be a drag to handle, but enough that the buyer wouldn't be out of pocket any substantial amount for any length of time. Any ideas?

mo norail77 wrote:Dam,n dueced damn. I went to my local Canadian Wal-mart and, sure enough, no graphic novels included.

I don't suppose some kind hearted Zoner would want to facilitate picking these up and shipping them to me in Canada? I'd pay up front! I have a job and everything!!

i'll be glad to help out, Monorail. just send me a pm and we can work out the details.

Peven!! You rock, my man. Very generous. And I may take you up on it.

But since I wrote that plea, I've had a brilliant idea: my folks will soon be travelling to the U.S. on their annual snowbird vacation. I'm going to ask them to pick up the Wal-Mart versions for me. This has the advantage of them paying for the movies, and they likely won't ask me to refund them (mwahahahaha).

But, if they refuse or if there's some glitch, I'll definitely be sending you that PM. Thanks for being a sport.

I've been thinking of how this would work. Out of curiosity, and for potential future reference, do you have any ideas? Could I forward money to some internet account of yours, like paypal or something? Or would I send you a cheque? I'm loathe to give out my credit card number, not that I don't trust you, but just in case, y'know?

I'm curious if anyone has suggestions about the logistics of someone buying stuff for me in the U.S. and shipping it to Canada. The goal would be for me to pay up front, but not overpay, because refunds would be a drag to handle, but enough that the buyer wouldn't be out of pocket any substantial amount for any length of time. Any ideas?

no sweat, man, and if it comes down to it, i would send them to your address and you could just send me a check or money order in return. if i buy them first and then ship to you i could include the reciept so you could be assured i wasn't jacking you on price, and you'd know exactly how much to send to pay for them. and of course, if you sent the check 2-day air for a quick turnaround i wouldn't complain.

let me know how the plans with your parents work out and just consider it a standing offer from me to hook you up.

I rented the unaltered ANH (properly titled Star Wars) from Netflix and watched it last night.

I was happy to see an official release version of this movie. But that's about as far as my happiness went. This is B-grade stuff, folks. Lucasfilm put absolutely no effort into this release. The old 1977 visual effects didn't bother me. In fact, they didn't look as bad as on my VHS (I saw nary a mattebox and the blacks were pretty deep making the space scenes pop all the more). No, what felled my tender heart was the obvious neglect the transfer of this film received to DVD. There were scratches and lines everywhere. Heavy grain was apparent in many scenes. A weird gauze seemed to infect some portions of the film and my biggest peeve: the image shook! Come on. Lucasfilm should be ashamed of themselves for so sloppy a presentation. They didn't even meet the standards of other companies, let alone their own usually top notch standard for entertainment product.

So where does that leave me? It's better quality than my laserdisc-to-DVD version, but not by much. I would prefer to own the real deal, but I don't feel it's worth retail. $30? No way. Not even $20. I'd have to seriously consider $15, but $10 a disc sounds about right for the quality they've given us. But then what? Is this it? Or does a better version await us down the road? If so, I'd rather wait, but this may the trilogy's swan song. Who knows?

So the upshot is that I was happy with the film itself. Gone were all the annoying SE changes. The visual effects didn't look as crappy as some people make them out to be. The only thing I really noticed was how slow some of the shots in the Death Star battle were, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the sequence in the least. However, Lucasfilm did nothing to clean this film up and the transfer was obviously a slapdash effort. I was really disappointed in the quality of this release. It's not VHS bad, or even laserdisc bad. But it's not up to DVD standards and when a variety of other classic films get the deluxe treatment, it makes me sad to see Star Wars presented this way. In 1993 I'm sure this would have looked great. But it's 2006. It just doesn't fly.

We've just received a translation of the recent LEGO booklet posted here in this story.

"STAR WARS celebrates it 30th anniversary !

* The LEGO Star Wars line still sells well - even in years without a movie. In 2005, the LEGO Star Wars assortment was about 70 % of the total revenue of all Star Wars licences in central europe. In April 2006, LEGO Star Wars was about 7,8% of the total revenue of LEGO Central Europe

* Because of the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars Saga, there will be a balanced assortment of NEW LEGO Star Wars items and best seller with new designs, in 2007. All sets include unique parts and figures.

* The STAR WARS DVD set, that will be released at the 30th anniversary, will be responsible for an increased sale of the new sets. There will be a anniversary logo on all LEGO Star Wars sets.

* All LEGO Star Wars set will be very detailed - with many authentic features, heros and bad guys from the movies.

There is no original negative to "re-scan". In 1997 when they made the special editions, the old negative had deteriorated and they replaced it with the Special Edition version. Whole elements of negative were missing (like the opticals for the wipes of the Sandcrawler & stormtroopers in the desert).

If you all want to debate the merits of George Lucas not choosing to do a restoration of the old edits, you're only 9 years too late and it kinda can't be undone now.

There is no original negative to "re-scan". In 1997 when they made the special editions, the old negative had deteriorated and they replaced it with the Special Edition version. Whole elements of negative were missing (like the opticals for the wipes of the Sandcrawler & stormtroopers in the desert).

If you all want to debate the merits of George Lucas not choosing to do a restoration of the old edits, you're only 9 years too late and it kinda can't be undone now.

There is no original negative to "re-scan". In 1997 when they made the special editions, the old negative had deteriorated and they replaced it with the Special Edition version. Whole elements of negative were missing (like the opticals for the wipes of the Sandcrawler & stormtroopers in the desert).

If you all want to debate the merits of George Lucas not choosing to do a restoration of the old edits, you're only 9 years too late and it kinda can't be undone now.

Remember it's just a movie, nothing more.

Even if I were to believe no negatives exist, there are plenty of interpositives that exist in the world from which a decent high pixel transfer can be made. The laserdisc masters weren't the only option, it was only the easiest option.

There are prints in the national archives and several interpositives and release prints exist in the private sector. Do you want me to find names or can you just accept the fact that the reason we got a shitty release is because Lucas wanted it to be a shitty release, not because they couldn't do better?

I guarantee you if Lucas really wanted to, we could have a state of the art digital presentation of the unaltered trilogy. Do you doubt that?

Release prints I believe exist in the private sector (duh), interpositives is a whole other matter. Trying to do a telecine transfer from a release print is a joke and anyone who's ever been in the telecine bay can see that pretty quickly.

If you have the name of a single individual who genuinely has an interpositive of Star Wars, I'd love to meet them or yes, indeed have to have verification because I don't believe you.

I agree that George Lucas could release a better version of the original trilogy, but that I also think that he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to. He OWNS the movie and how they are presented, so it's kinda up to him. As the artist, he gets to determine how it is seen and distributed.

So, I finally broke down and bought each of the OT DVD releases, even though I had bought the 2004 box-set, because I really wanted to get my hands on the un-special-edition-ized versions on DVD. Plus, they finally came down to a price point I could live with.

And I popped in Star Wars and was all happy it looked the way I remembered, and Han shot first and there was no goofy whooshing debris ring when the Death Star blew up.

But the transfer is just fucking awful. There's a weird signal howl sort of shimmer to some of the brights and the image is grainy and it shakes. And the black bars are HUGE on the top and bottom of the screen. Much bigger, it seemed to me, than other non-anamorphic widesceen DVD releases I own from the same era of film.

So soured was I by the deplorable lack of quality that, you know what? ...

I took them back. I didn't even open the other two films and I took them all back today. The store was kind enough to refund for all of them, even though one had been opened and its clearly against their stated policy. Bless them!

And wouldn't you know it, I found another item I have been watching for many months that finally came down to a price point I can live with. I am now the proud owner of all three seasons of the Original Star Trek TV series on DVD. Can't wait to crack into those. I'm sure they won't be nearly as disappointing as those appalling Star Wars DVD's. I sure hope not, because I doubt the store would give me another full refund on opened DVD's next week! I'm sure I won't have any problems with these sets though.

So, my message to you: Do Not Buy These DVD's for the untouched original releases. They are terrible and a waste of your money. If you didn't buy the 2004 box-set, then fine, knock yourself out. You'll be getting those same DVD's if you buy these 2-disc sets. But if you have the 2004 DVD's, don't waste your time with these.

monorail77 wrote:But the transfer is just fucking awful. There's a weird signal howl sort of shimmer to some of the brights and the image is grainy and it shakes. And the black bars are HUGE on the top and bottom of the screen. Much bigger, it seemed to me, than other non-anamorphic widesceen DVD releases I own from the same era of film.

Mono - They were supposed to look bad. The grainy look, the missing reels, the melted film at the one point... they were all intentional to look like the old nasty pictures from the 70's.

Oh whoops.
Wrong thread, wrong concept.

I'm so glad I bought the untouched original laser disc transfer of the OT on a bootleg DVD back in 2000, long before Lucas ever realistically hinted he might release them on legit DVDs. Not only is the transfer decent, but the bonus features, ON A BOOTLEG, are sweet!!!

I bought the remastered/redone/Hayden's-A-Ghost box set to atone for my bootleg sins, and am still glad I bought them!!!

Fievel wrote:I'm so glad I bought the untouched original laser disc transfer of the OT on a bootleg DVD back in 2000, long before Lucas ever realistically hinted he might release them on legit DVDs. Not only is the transfer decent, but the bonus features, ON A BOOTLEG, are sweet!!!

I thought the "original" OT DVDs were taken from the LaserDisc transfer anyway? Or was the bootleg transferred by someone else?

I bought the Hayden version of the trilogy as demo discs and because I couldn't wait. I pirated the original OT discs from the video store where I work because I wanted the originals but wasn't going to play Lucas's game and shell out again.

Fievel wrote:I'm so glad I bought the untouched original laser disc transfer of the OT on a bootleg DVD back in 2000, long before Lucas ever realistically hinted he might release them on legit DVDs. Not only is the transfer decent, but the bonus features, ON A BOOTLEG, are sweet!!!

I thought the "original" OT DVDs were taken from the LaserDisc transfer anyway? Or was the bootleg transferred by someone else?

I'm pretty sure you're right, but in this case it's acceptable because it's all they had at the time. Lucasfilm easly had the resources ($$) to go and clean it up and they didn't.

If I didn't have such a back log of things to watch, I'd watch my copy of the Holiday Special daily just as a middle finger to the bearded one.
Okay, no I wouldn't. That'd be some rough shit there.

Kim Masters wrote:Disney's $4 billion deal for Lucasfilm does not include the right to release the original 'Star Wars' -- unless a new deal can be forged with Fox.

It appears that George Lucas did not give the studio that has distributed the Star Wars films since 1977 a shot at buying his company. But Fox isn't out of the Star Wars game just yet -- which raises the question: What are the prospects for the ultimate Star Wars box set?

Disney will own and release future films in the Star Wars series (as for potential Indiana Jones films, Paramount retains some distribution rights and future movies will only be made if both Paramount and Disney agree on terms). Lucas apparently has sketched out plans for three more Star Wars films -- he always envisioned making nine -- with Episode Seven set for release in 2015. But Fox owns distribution rights to the original Star Wars, No. 4 in the series, in perpetuity in all media worldwide. And as for the five subsequent movies, Fox has theatrical, nontheatrical and home video rights worldwide through May 2020.

While the rights on those five films eventually will revert to Disney, that "in perpetuity" pact for the first film appears to be an obstacle to Disney releasing a complete set -- unless a deal can be made.

According to a longtime Lucas associate, the filmmaker always wanted to keep his films together. “Now it seems like he can't have a total package of the story because one of the movies is with Fox, unless they can make some kind of deal [with Disney] to release nine of them,” this person says.

Disney and Fox did not respond to a request for comment. But a Fox insider tells THR that as for Disney's blockbuster deal to purchase Lucas' company, "we certainly would have liked a crack at it but i get the play."

Fox plans to proceed with plans to re-release the supposedly much-improved 3D versions of Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith in fall 2013. The re-release of Episode I -- The Phantom Menace turned in only a fair performance earlier this year, grossing a total of $102.8 million worldwide. Fox receives only a relatively low - six percent - distribution fee to release those films.

Lucas’s decision to sell his company to Disney--not Fox--makes sense: Disney has the theme parks, merchandising and licensing operations to take full advantage of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones characters. "Disney is the perfect place,” says the Lucas associate. ”At Fox they just make movies. Fox doesn't have theme parks and huge brands. This is a good fit."

So despite Lucas’s wish to keep the films together, the allure of the Disney parks in particular may have been too strong. The filmmaker has long been known for demanding exceptionally tough deals. But one of the few instances in which he felt he wasn’t tough enough involved a deal in the late 1980s with Disney to make characters from Star Wars and Indiana Jones the first non-Disney properties at the parks-- for $1 million a year, in perpetuity.